Crichton wasn’t as steeped in maritime history as, say, Patrick O’Brian, author of “Master and Commander” and the other Aubrey-Maturin novels, but he acquits himself well enough in describing how slower-burning fuses can be made from opossum guts, how to survive a hurricane at sea and how to sabotage Danish cannons. The precision of the historical detail helps conceal the thinness of the characterizations, as everyone in the book, from Hunter on down, is a type, not a three-dimensional individual.

Immediately subsequent to the Sept. 11 attacks and for three months afterward, Crichton faxed daily press releases to the conservative periodical The National Review detailing how he would win in a “faire fieght” with Tom Wolfe. The pages included multiple clipped pictures of Taliban leader Mullah Omar from the CNN website with hand drawn glasses and the caption “T. Wolfe!” Each day included more penned-in fixes either expanding on his rationale or fixing imagined typos, eventually yielding a document of near cryptographic unreadability.

In a Q&A at George Washington University in 2003, when asked who his favorite author was, Crichton replied “Smoke On the Water.”

The next question was answered by silent air guitar, accompanied by a smile equal parts surprised and proud. The question was “Are you married?”

In an interview where he details the plot of his upcoming novel about a clannish group termed the “Nickel Suns” living communally in Oklahoma, Crichton paused, staring at the slightly parted venetian blinds for an awkward three minutes before dreamily saying “You’re gonna be seeing a lot more six-fingered people after this book comes out. It won’t be… y’know. It won’t be safe to drink the water and if you have a problem with your ex-wife: forget it.”

The ancestors of today’s American Indians were not responsible for the massive die-off of American megafauna. No, that was scabies.

Skin cancer is caused by charm bracelets and Corona Extra.

Blonde-haired, blue-eyed mummies have been found in western China; Chinese mummies have been found in David Schwimmer’s yard.

The first diesel engine was designed to run on peanut oil, threatening the interests of the robber barons (and their sinister Masonic cronies) while potentially making Southern peanut farmers indecently rich. While torching the peanut car prototype, Andrew Carnegie was alleged to have said “They’d just spend it on mudflaps and banjo-related amusements.”

White chocolate is for pedophiles.

Sammy Hagar is actually a genius. And invented making out.

Michael Crichton wrote all of Spoon’s songs up through Gimme Fiction, losing them to clever hacking of Crichton’s floppy disk by “that tricky ginger frontman.”

There are many, many lies we all believe. Every douche at a bar will swear these 12 fictoids are true despite science– As everyone know these things to be ‘true’. Here are twelve of the most common that I have heard recently.

Ostriches put their head in sand.

If you have seen it, it’s called “Photoshop” as in the case of a recent Newsweek cover. We can all blame Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) who attempted to catalog all knowledge of the Roman Empire. In Book 10, Chapter 1, he wrote “…they imagine, when they have thrust their head and neck into a bush, that the whole of their body is concealed.” Thanks, Pliny. In fairness animals are hard to categorize; for some time it was thought a kangaroo had two heads due to the young baby in tow.

Disney is frozen

Disney maintained an extremely private life leading to rumors that he was a harsh anti-Semite, a puppet of Zionists, a Communist and a Fascist. One confirmed fact is his remains were cremated at Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, California– much more prosaic than cryogenic suspension. Very few have taken the leap to become a cryonaut, most notably baseball legend Ted Williams, Williams’ son John Henry Williams, and futurist FM-2030.

Sugar causes hyperactivity

Sugar is called empty calories for a clear reason: its just calories without vitamins, proteins, or lipids. Our bodies need calories for energy, but we can find them in every food we consume. Sugar is no different than any food with calories and does not provide any excess energy. Excess amounts of oranges, pork, or even burgers provides the same if not more for bouts of energy.

Every seven years your cells regenerate

Do you remember any event from seven or more years ago? Good, as that means a neuron in your head has survived seven years. Brain cells– among other cells– last longer than seven years. It’s nice to think that every seven year your body gets a refresh but unfortunately that’s not the case. We just get seven years older.

You only use 10% of your brain

The origin of this myth is dubious but perhaps stems from upstate New Yorker Orson Squire Fowler a proponent of the pseudoscience phrenology, life-style pundit, and inventor of the octagon house. Phrenology claimed the brain was divided into neat platonic sections controlling “friendship,” “love,” and “ailments.” It’s a soothing idea to think that 90% of your brain remains untapped of potential. Perhaps one we could utilize that, and realize our dream as a 6 year old of being the greatest person, ever. CAT scans and logic tells us we use that 90% all the time– and you don’t want to part with that 90%.

We lose 90% of heat through our head

So what does that 90% of your brain do? According to suburban mom wisdom it is where 90% of the heat in your body escapes. The ancient Greeks among others thought of the brain as simply a cooling mechanism for the body. For 90% of the heat in your body to escape from your body, 90% would need to be in your head. If you want to do an experiment, walk around with a hat but completely naked in the dead of winter. Chances are you will be arrested and pretty damn cold.

Drink 8 glasses of water a day; coffee causes you to lose hydration

Though not recommended, you can get daily requirements for liquid from daily food intake. Many will insist though that water is a cure-all, able to solve any and all problems. They will also insist that beverages such as coffee, soda, or tea are a diuretic meaning a net-loss of water. Though coffee and soda are not as efficient as water, they do not cause a loss of water. While drinking eight glasses might not be necessary, it is not a requirement.

Lemmings jump off a cliff

Uncle Walt may not wait in cryogenic suspension. His company did force numerous lemmings to die and create the myth of lemming suicide. Lemmings do on occasion fall into the ocean from cliffs, as do people on occasion. However, it is not a habit and not the norm. While filming the nature documentary White Wilderness the set staff pushed the poor critters off a cliff dramatically. Killing the lemmings but a myth was born. [Edit: Let’s go to tape on this one: lemmings getting White and Wild]

Tequila worms

Tequila does not have a worm in it. Mezcal, however, does. Tequila, by definition, is made exclusively from blue agave. According to liquor standards in the US and Mexico tequila cannot contain insects or larvae.

More importantly though eating the worm will not provide any additional inebriate, aphrodisiac, or any effects. It’s just a gimmick.

Cow tipping

Cows do not sleep standing up. Period. Nor do they lock their legs. Period. Approaching a field for cow-tipping has simply become a faux right-of-passage for hick high school students in the US. While cows are docile, tipping them is physically impossible.

Purple cloud in a pool when you pee

Many even recall seeing a cloud of purple or red around someone in a public pool indicating that person was urinating. There is no such chemical. Though this discouraged youths from peeing in the pool, this chemical cannot be purchased and does not exist. How often urination in pools happens would require constant draining and refilling of every public pool which is beyond budgets or feasibility. Discouraged from swimming yet?

Water spins in a different direction in the southern hemisphere

The Coriolis effect does have a weak force on objects on Earth. That force is too weak to effect water or any other liquid. Water spins both clockwise and counterclockwise on both sides of the equator. Movement in water from origin will dictate its direction regardless of hemisphere. Try it in your sink by pushing water one way or another. This will not even require a trip across the hemisphere to Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, etc.

Do you fancy yourself a computer home computer enthusiast? Or would you like to become one? Rest assured, everything you need to know is in retarded movies.

Access Denied & Hacking

Anytime anything wrong happens it will inevitably lead to a full screen flashing text saying Access Denied. Period. Oh and passwords are really easy to figure out and usually as I learned from Watchmen or The X-Files are the names of objects located near the computer in question. It’s also quite easy as in WarGames to accidentally get the username and password for thermodynamic weapons or some vast conspiracy.

Wondering how you will be able to obtain anything through this “hacking” nonsense like bank cards, video confessions or someone’s DNA? Luckily, NASA and other agencies have easy to use high-tech user interfaces with well thought buttons indicated “LAUNCH SHUTTLE” or “NUKE THE SOVIET UNION.” These functions are all accessible over the World Wide Web. Anytime you need access at the last minute to a nuclear power plant, NORAD, or a car’s engine hacking is on your side.

You may need to use a computer virus to do some super good or harm, just as long as it has a countdown sequence. Alien spaceship or home computer: viruses can do anything. They also cause physical damage such as smoke, screen glitches, or elaborate bitching graphics with skulls and crap off of a Lisa Frank folder.

Planning is not necessary: just jam on your keyboard and that sad Access Denied will become a giant green Access Granted!

Everything is VR

VR Michael Douglas

The single best way of using a computer is not through a mouse and keyboard. If you want to get real work done, slap on a VR helmet. Also you know how Google makes it easy to find things by there being a convenient search box? No, there should be virtual file cabinets to hide and misfile information.

Michael Douglas does this in Disclosure. When he’s not getting raped by Demi Moore he invents VR. He’s able to find dirt on Moore way quicker than with Google or any of those kids toys. It’s like Halo mixed with Altavista from 1997. This is typical of movies like Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity, and Johnny Mnemonic they make computer seem magical and less utilitarian– as doing mundane tasks like opening Outlook should be. Insert virtual reality and anything can happen– even sex!

If the computer does anything involving the security depart they must have a 3D wireframe model of the entire building allowing the security guards to zoom in and out a lá Jurassic Park or Ocean’s 12. Otherwise they are fucked.

In short, this is how the Internet works. Or at least how it works for Keanu Reeves.

Never Make Backups, Ever

Great, so you discovered that the President is sleeping with, literally sleeping with the Soviet Premier. Save the information on one floppy disk or one laptop and never make a backup, physical copy, or email it to anyone. This is extremely important. This is imperative. Otherwise you will never have a final showdown with your enemy who thought he won on top of a skyscraper as he’s about to crush the floppy disk. Don’t believe me? Watch Fled, Mission Impossible, The Net, or any movie made in the 1990’s.

In Conclusion: There is Nothing A Computer Can’t Do

CSI and Bladerunner shows that any camera has infinite resolution. You must be a horrible photographer if you can’t get a perfect shot of the ‘perp reflecting in the teeth of a witness from a MacDonald’s security camera. All software is compatible with any other software, just slide the disk in an the file will pop up. Also, note that even over a payphone in Hackers its possible to have unlimited Internet speeds. DARYL in the aptly named DARYL had unlimited wireless bandwidth. Just remember whatever it is, whatever plot hole, computers will fix it.

Barack Obama is in almost daily contact with SETI and is communicating with the aliens directly.

The aliens indirectly contributed to the development of internet search engines and they are in limited contact with Google through SETI. They are able to access the internet currently and their involvement in search engine research is for the purpose of allowing them to understand as much about earth as possible prior to their next arrival.

Awesome. Not only is Barack Obama in constant contact with them but they both contribute and learn from the Internet.

Just keep that in mind whenever you spread a meme: cultural emissaries from several light years away will be basing every picture of a cat as what it means to be human.

In the video below one of the Brothers Winn from What You Ought to Know here states several misconceptions on the idea of infinity as well as alternate universes.

Multiverse theory follows that ‘this’ universe exists along side many other universes. Some suppose that when a quantum event occurs, e.g. an electron moves, a different universe is created with each distinct possibility. Or as what the gentleman in the video below comically says “you are batman, and a woman.”

A popular misconception is infinity means everything or anything can happen. Any mathematician or someone with an elementary school education will tell you there are an infinite set of numbers between 2.34 and 2.35. Numbers such as 2.341, 2.342, 2.3421 and so on.

None of these numbers, however, are 7.938.

Or in other words there might be an infinite set of universes but none where he is right.

Way back in the dark ages of 2008–a year sure to be called, henceforth, “The Fuckening”–my original designs for titleofmagazine were largely fermented cubicle thoughts merging pop science blurbs with lies about authors whose names appear in raised type on their books’ dust jackets. I had fantasies of gently ribbing airport bookstore gods such as Dean “Groping Golden Hand” Koontz and Michael “Gigantor” Crichton into turning my life into a treeless version of The Most Dangerous Game.

But alas, Crichton’s heart gave out. The man was 6’20” and given to flogging the writing muscles until they squeezed out the purest extracts of commuter-ready techno-thriller and such a strain finally took its toll. He died the undisputed king of jamming the Clif’s Notes version of modern science up a tyrannosaurus’s ass and then rolling in its cash scented excretions. A wild ride indeed.

So instead of a running joke, I offer the following as an homage. No one gave the ol’ literary hip check to his detractors like Michael Crichton. Wikipedia tells a tale of political columnist, Yale graduate and Crichton critic Michael Crowley:

In his 2006 novel Next (released November 28 of that year), Crichton introduces a character named “Mick Crowley” who is a Yale graduate and a Washington D.C.-based political columnist. “Crowley” is portrayed by Crichton as a child molester with a small penis. The character is a minor one who does not appear elsewhere in the book.

Ouch. At least he didn’t make him a Nazi needle-dicked child molester.

If I ran Wikipedia…

In Blaze, Crichton’s unpublished novel about a stripper who has a supernatural ability to predict events in fantasy baseball, Crichton introduces a character named Al Gower, a vice president from Tennessee. “Gower” is described as a child molester with “penile botulism” who hates science fiction novels and maintains a superstitious fear of “spooks n’ hot weather ha’ints.”

– – –
Michael Crichton has a reoccuring dream where he meets Mark Twain. In it, Twain produces a gold medal from inside his cream-colored suit coat and says “Here, this really belongs to you.” The raised print on the medal reads, simply: “The Greatest.”

“After that, we went on to have Adventures,” Crichton said. He added: “Make sure you capitalize ‘Adventures’ when you type that up.” He repeated this request at the end of the interview, holding out the handshake with an insistent grip until I verbally agreed.

Michael Crichton rewrote that song and that movie as “I Shot the
Sheriff, the Deputy, the Cook and His Wife (And I Winged Jeff Goldblum Too)” There are no curse words but graphic descriptions of grave-robbing, cannibalism and organ theft. There is also a reference to Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

The song is reported to be play over the closing credits on the
unreleased Definitive Exclusive Ultimate Edition Director’s Cut of The Great Train Robbery, pushing the film to a likely NC-17 rating.

– – –
Michael Crichton stays quiet during sex to keep higher ranking females from punishing him for having sex with the best males.